Gerudo King
by Twin Kats
Summary: Hundreds of thousands of years ago the six sages sealed Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm. Ganondorf swore he'd have his revenge. But the seal was stronger than anyone could predict, and when it did break...well, everything had changed. Even Ganondorf.
1. Prlg: Ganondorf

**Gerudo King  
><strong>_Prologue: Ganondorf's Return  
><em>By Twin Kats / twinkats / Twin-Kats / Ash Sullivan

The Gerudo King was defeated. Link, the Hero of Time, had fought him in his castle seven years in the future and bested the Evil King. He freed the Princess Zelda and stopped the plot for the man to have the Tri-Force all to himself, successfully keeping the broken pieces separated.

The towering structure crashed down around Zelda and Link as they fled, the last vestiges of Ganondorf's power destroying it. He swore to kill them too if he had to die. He would not die _alone_ in this pathetic world, bested by the hands of an untried brat. That too ultimately failed. Zelda and Link escaped.

Ganon decided to rear his head in turn, pulling on the Tri-Force of Power. He removed Link of the Master Sword—he would not allow the boy the advantage of Evil's Bane like Ganondorf had. Yet still somehow the little brat was able to beat him, retrieve the Master Sword, and beat him _again_. Zelda's interference was unwarranted; he was already done for when Link had knocked him down for the third time.

Zelda then called upon the Sages power, and the Goddesses themselves. Gerudo Thief and Evil King both felt the power course around him, wrapping him tight with Light, Shadow, Water, Fire, Forest, Spirit, and Time. They blinded and blindsided him and sealed him away within the Sacred Realm that his touch had corrupted.

Ganondorf swore revenge.

_YOU...  
><em>_CURSE YOU...ZELDA!  
><em>_CURSE YOU...SAGES!  
><em>_CURSE YOU...LINK!  
><em>_Someday...  
><em>_When this seal is broken...  
><em>_That is when I will destroy your descendants!  
><em>_As long as the Tri-Force of Power is in my hand..._

A thousand year passed, two thousand years, and the world shifted and changed. The Zora were gone, the Goron were gone, even the Gerudo in the Desert, the Kokiri in the Forest, and the Hylian's of Hyrule simply vanished. No more were people born with pointed ears, in ocean waters, or thrived upon eating rocks and thieving. No more was there just one continent split into regions, and no more was there a Monarchy.

Everything that was ceased to be.

Instead came Cetra, children born with the ability to understand the cries of the earth. Then came humans, the Cetra's deaf and blind cousins. A race of lion-like creatures, birds known as Chocobo, and several varieties of monsters. The world changed and adapted.

But the bloodlines of old still survived.

New evil came to the land, and was summarily contained, and once more freed as the world grew, changed, and aged. Much of the old was gone, lost to time, including the Legend of the Tri-Force, the three Goddesses, and the Hero of Time.

Within the Sacred Realm, surrounded by white and bound by the Sages diminishing power, Ganondorf still existed. He still held the Tri-Force of Power in his hand. He was consumed by his thirst for revenge. It was in silence after those first centuries that he began to chip away at his bonds, planning and plotting. He did not escape, not at first, and not for a long, long while.

Not until the world changed, not until August 11th, [μ] εyλ, 1986.

Unfortunately Ganondorf didn't return as, well, the fully powered Gerudo Thief, Evil King. No, he returned as a squalling newborn baby with a tuft of blond hair and blue eyes that, if you looked really carefully, shifted to gold with the turn of his emotions.

His name became Cloud Strife.  
><em>(and in later years he'd be a hero)<em>

Fate, Ganondorf decided, absolutely loathed him.

* * *

><p><strong>Summary: <strong>Hundreds of thousands of years ago the six sages sealed Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm. Ganondorf swore he'd have his revenge. But the seal was stronger than anyone could predict, and when it did break...well, everything had changed. Even Ganondorf. /FF7 crossover/fusion/

_This story idea honestly came about the exact **second** I finally beat Ocarina of Time 3D. The image of the Sages sealing Ganondorf away, that white expanse world, immediately jumped my mind to Cloud Strife in a similar set of imagery, if in a completely differen't context. As minds are won't to do when they see connect images, however, it concocted this little cocktail._

_And so, I present to you the first **ever** Ganondorf is Cloud Strife tale. Give it a shot, I assure you, if nothing else you'll find it amusing. Hopefully. Don't go yelling at me if you don't though. That just means you don't share my brand of humor._

_-Twin Kats_


	2. Ch1: From Gerudo Desert to Nibel Mts

**Gerudo King  
><strong>_Chapter One: From Gerudo Desert to Nibelheim Mountains  
><em>By Twin Kats / twinkats / Twin-Kats / Ash Sullivan

Growing up in Nibelheim was different to growing up in the Gerudo Valley Desert.

First there was _snow_ eight to nine months out of the year. Gerudo Valley only ever got snow maybe once or twice over two months, and usually by the time the sun rose over the sandy landscape the snow had literally evaporated away. And while desert nights were always cold and unforgiving, but they were _nothing_ like the nights of Nibelheim during the winter season.

Life amongst the desert was a life of give and take. You had to learn to be resilient, sneaky, and resourceful from a young age. You had to learn where to find food, water, how to avoid a mirage, what monsters were edible, which cacti weren't poisonous, but most of all you had to learn to _steal_. In Nibelheim most of this foreknowledge from another life was useless.

He knew how to locate water in a sea of sand, he knew which desert life were best of sustenance, and he knew how to steal. He had no knowledge of combating Nibel wolves which were like a smarter, less mutated Kokiri wolfos. He had no knowledge of how to survive a cold winter, or which forest berries were poisonous or even the simple act of _farming_. So he had to learn, from scratch, like everyone and everything else in the little village.

For the first years of his new life as Cloud, Ganondorf had to push aside his past knowledge, to push aside his desires and his plotting, and simply learn how to survive all over again. It certainly was interesting how his new life and his old life differed so much from one another.

They were fairly similar too.

As Ganondorf he'd been the first male Gerudo born in a hundred years. By writ of scripture of the thieving tribes that made him King of the Gerudo. However that never meant he was _accepted_. As a child, wholly male and growing up amongst an entirely female enclave of thieves Ganondorf had not the kindest nor easiest childhood. He was told how privileged he was from a young aged, and then vilified and beat down.

Gerudo woman _hated_ men. They found the male form as nothing more than a source for their continued lineage, not something to be respected, revered, or even honored. This statement of their culture even held true to natural born male Gerudo. Despite that the Gerudo men would ultimately rule their people, they were _not_ accepted in any form unless able to prove themselves a great thief. They had to be better than the woman, better than the _best, _and throughout it all they had to take the abuse of simply being different with no complaint.

Ganondorf _couldn't_. He lashed out in need of power to show them who was _better_. He was supposed to have been their King! Along the way evil had wormed into his heart and power became all that he cared about.

In Nibelheim however there was no female superiority to deal with, there was no vilification of his person. Cloud Strife was considered a pariah of the village, yes, but simply because his mother had never married. She'd born child out of wedlock, something that Ganondorf thought before now was _normal_. After all Gerudo never married.

But the culture of Nibelheim was different than the culture of the Gerudo, and apparently it was a fairly big thing to not have been married. With how high the death rate of children in the mountainous snow-covered village, on top of its generally low-kept population, Nibelheim was very tradition oriented. Amongst the Gerudo the only tradition had been that _every_ Gerudo was a thief and that you _never_ fuck with the Spirit Temple. They were a guild, clan, _family_ of thieves, Guardians of Spirit. That was it.

Nibelheim had a tradition about marriage, about celebrations, about practically _everything_. There were traditions for the first snow fall, traditions for the first death of the year, traditions for the first harvest, the first _hunt—_Nibelheim was all about tradition, and Cloud soaked it up because Ganondorf found it _fascinating_.

Somehow, in a way, with his mother and the villages traditions and even despite the dislike towards his person, Ganondorf grew to love little Nibelheim in a way he could never love the Gerudo. The place became a _home _in the way that the desert never quite seemed to be, and so Ganondorf became a little attached.

As Cloud he grew to have a strange sort of repartee between his neighbor, the daughter of the village Mayor, Tifa Lockheart. He wouldn't quite call it friendship but it was _something_. It was that something between the two of them that for some reason decided, when they were nine—him physically because mentally, _hah_, he hadn't been nine in _years—_he had decided to follow her up into the mountains when the girl got the bright idea that her _dead mother_ was just waiting up there.

Suicidal little bitch nearly got him killed rescuing her. Ganondorf had never been certain why he'd done it really except that he was sure he'd miss her witty, biting, scathing way of conversing they shared. No one else in this pathetic little village that had wormed its way into his nonexistent heart could match him verbally like Tifa. So he saved her.

_Disgusting_.

In the end the act just vilified him amongst the village population, confirming the belief that he'd gained as Ganondorf _that heroism never paid_. Not selfless, reckless, heroism at any rate—it certainly hadn't paid here and Cloud became _more_ of the village pariah than before.

After a year of dealing with the increased hostilities from everyone except Tifa Cloud decided that Nibelheim was less a home for him now and it was getting close to high time he hightailed it _out_. He had revenge to plot after all, and bloodlines to find. He swore to kill Link and Zelda and the Sages descendents, had he not?

So at the age of ten Cloud planned how he was going to leave the backwater mountain wastes for better waters. He needed money, first of all, which neither he nor his mother had. That meant, heaven forbid, getting a job. Or thieving but to be a successful thief he needed to understand the technology of the new era. Things weren't as simplistic as they had been once before after all. Sadly Nibelheim wasn't the height of technology for the world, which meant moving to one of the better towns...which still meant getting a job, eventually. Unless of course there was a job to be a sociopathic _murderer_ then he'd be in some good business.

After all if there was one thing Cloud _knew_ he'd be good at, it was killing.

Newspapers rolled in exclaiming about the Wutai War, backlogs from months worth of papers not gained in the snowstorm of the year. For the first time in his young life Cloud learned of Shinra—he'd heard whispers about it, mostly because of the reactor, but the town preferred to pretend it didn't exist except for that _creepy_ abandoned mansion. Cloud resolved to sneak off and investigate the place soon; it sounded like his kind of _fun_ after all. And hey, perhaps that creepy old mansion would have more information on this Shinra and their 'programs' for young, upcoming men.

He wasn't enticed by the promise of becoming a _hero_. That was a fools dream. However he _was_ curious why the townsfolk pretended Shinra never existed, or why the mansion was abandoned, and from what he could gather between the lines of the newspapers Shinra was something like the Hyrule Royalty. _That_ meant that if he wanted to get _anywhere_ in this world to fulfill _any_ of his desires for revenge, well...Shinra would be a good start.

But first, the mansion.

* * *

><p><strong>Summary: <strong>Hundreds of thousands of years ago the six sages sealed Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm. Ganondorf swore he'd have his revenge. But the seal was stronger than anyone could predict, and when it did break...well, everything had changed. Even Ganondorf. /FF7 crossover/fusion/

_Just a little exposition on the differences of growing up amongst the Gerudo, to growing up amongst the traditional Nibelheim peoples. Also a bit of a look into the mind of Ganondorf. Next chapter will most probably just another little exposition piece before we start kicking the plot into high gear._

_To make matters even more interesting I decided to make Nibelheim even **more** remote than it normally is. Thus the practical communication blockout for eight to nine months of the year, due to extremely long and harsh winters. Because of this it makes Nibelheim practically autonomous from Shinra unless you count the old reactor still giving their town power. It also helps with the 'traditional' front I decided to go with._

_This has in turn left Ganondorf mostly ignorant of the world at large. I figured I'd toss some obstacles in his way. Mix things up, y'know? Anyway, enjoy~_

_-Twin Kats_


	3. Ch2: A Man After His Cold Black Heart

**Gerudo King  
><strong>_Chapter Two: A Man After His Cold Black Heart  
><em>By Twin Kats / twinkats / Twin-Kats / Ash Sullivan

Cloud learned that Shinra Mansion was a veritable _goldmine_.

The first chance he'd gotten to sneak down to the place wasn't until the last of the winter snow had finally passed by. While all the other kids and adults were out fixing up damaged buildings and setting up crops for harvest or checking on the few greenhouses that they had, Cloud snuck off to the edge of town where the Shinra Mansion lay waiting. He'd heard the rumors that there was an infestation of monsters in the building and made sure to come adequately prepared.

Not that he really needed the sharp, long, hunters knife of the potions and two orbs of materia, really. He still had access to a well of power from years of preparation for going after the Tri-Force. He could still summon his dark magicks and fuel them with his intent. Heck when he'd get _bored_ of being a simple little country boy he'd sneak off to the forest and toy around with a ball of lightning in his hands.

Cloud learned some rather unconventional uses for his magicks that way. Fried Nibel wolf-meat. Yum.

As a precaution however he took the hunters knife, potions, and materia. After all how could he know if there was someone holed up in the decrepit old building or not? Hermits and shopkeepers chose some of the oddest places to live every now and then. Or that was how it was back when he was Gerudo, back in Hyrule. Heck there was one guy who kept selling bombchu's in the desert where virtually _no one_ could find him! Cloud shuddered at the memory. Hermits and shopkeepers were just _insane_.

With skills born of being one of the Gerudo—not that he was _now_ but that was entirely beside the point—Cloud picked at the lock on the gate to get into the front courtyard. From what little he could see the place was overrun with plant life. He half expected some mutated version of a Deku Scrub to come bouncing up amongst the overgrown grass, spitting Deku Seeds at him. Or for a Deku Baba to rise and snap its jaws, hungry for wayward Hylian, Zora, Gerudo, or Kokiri flesh. This made his first foray into the mansion filled with outright paranoia.

The paranoia served Cloud well in the end; he uncovered a _well_ of information, materials, _materia_...not even the monster infestation was able to stop him from pillaging through a good portion of the place before nightfall. What he did learn made him crave for _more_.

Cloud vowed to return, to soak up more of the knowledge left behind. The insane mind of Hojo was a breath of familiar air and he wanted to _devour_ it.

By the fifteenth trip to the mansion Cloud had begun to debunk a good portion of the written texts as fake. By the thirtieth he decided that Hojo was more insane, less 'pure genius' and doubly a _threat_. He had no subtlety to his madness, no _care_ in his work. The _human_ was nothing more than a butcher, lower than even a Bokoblin, that fledgling race that were wiped out by Ganondorf's might back when he'd been an arrogant teen.

Granted he was still arrogant, but it was tampered with a skill and finesse he'd lacked as a child that first time, and doubly tampered with the need to remain _hidden_ now. Subtlety was his _art_ in this world, and would be his weapon of choice. Especially when men of Hojo's caliber of madness ran rampant.

On the forty-fifth trip to the mansion he had been followed by Tifa, demanding to know what he'd been up to and where he'd been going lately. Cloud had been missing his chances for a spar of words with the young girl and she'd taken offense to it. Honestly he should have seen this coming; Tifa was such a child.

Granted she would also grow to be valuable eye candy if his magicks were to be trusted, and was worth use even now as the Mayors daughter. Her skill in physical combat wasn't much to laugh at either, in fact, even at the tender age of nine years old. Then there was just something about Tifa that drew him in. Cloud wasn't honestly sure what it was just yet, but it was familiar in a way like the Nibel wolves reminded Ganondorf of the Kokiri wolfos.

Really though he liked their often biting back-and-forth the best. Better get back to the present though, Tifa looked like she was ready to punch him good.

"What was that Lockheart? I wasn't listenin'," Cloud said with the faintest hints of a roguish grin. "I was t'busy admirin' how _flat chested_ you are."

Tifa growled and punched the wall by Cloud's head. He could see the cement splinter and crack underneath the force of her fist. In the past he'd wondered what exactly these humans got fed to make them so insanely strong, but after reading through the madman's notes he knew it wasn't _food_ but the mako. Nibelheim was practically rife with mako pools, both caused from the Reactor and some natural pools to the mountainous area. The Nibel natives in older times would bathe with distilled mako. Even today some of the harsher more steadfastly traditional families—like Tifa's own—practiced that old art.

"Strife," Tifa ground through gritted teeth and raised her other fist. Cloud quickly headed her off.

"I was learnin' things!" he snapped out. "You know Nibel Primary is crap an' don't teach nothin'. I want _out_ o' this place! I got plans, Lockheart, an' they don't have livin' here in 'em."

Tifa let a smirk curl at her lips. "Oh? Then share your plans, Strife. I want in."

Cloud resisted the urge to grin. She'd make a perfect minion. Much better than Nabooru ever was, that two-timing _bitch_.

"Help me t'explore an' I'll tell you what you wanna know," Cloud stated. "I think there's a basement somewhere. Ain't found the entrance yet. Think you can do it?"

Tifa rolled her eyes and cracked her knuckles. Cloud let his grin cross his face as she said, "Who 'ere is Zangan's apprentice, Strife?"

With Tifa's help—as he was loathe to admit that it was help—Cloud had been able to unearth the basement entrance. Well, they didn't _find_ the entrance so much as Tifa made one after a frustrating afternoon of searching. There were _reasons_ why Cloud thought she'd be a good minion, after all. Her tendency towards violence and ability to smash down walls was just one of them.

And yes, he might've fostered that tendency for violence in the hopes of gaining a minion but that was neither here nor there in the end. What they _found_ was what mattered.

In the basement there was a lab, and in the lab there were all sorts of tools. Cloud gleefully looked around at all the technology—most probably hopelessly outdated. He didn't dare touch the computers just yet, or the mako tanks, instead opting to stare in awe at the advances society had made since his time.

They had _nothing_ so extensive in Hyrule. He even doubted those ancient historical texts that spoke of ancient robots used in mining the surrounding area of the Gerudo Desert Valley were accurate. Nothing in Hyrule had ever suggested such _advanced_ technologies. At most they could make intricate locking systems but those were paltry compared to _now_.

Tifa discovered the secret door that led out of the basement lab and into a tunneled section beneath the Mansion. Both children decided to take a rudimentary exploration of the surrounding area. They were cautious but confident—wary of possible monsters as the Mansion was well known to have an infestation. Granted Cloud had yet to see any of these creatures hiding about—he saw plenty of signs of their presence, just none of the creatures themselves.

After about a half hour of combing the tunnel system, looking for information or treasures—the desire for shiny things wasn't something easily removed after thousands of years of imprisonment—both children doubled back. It was getting close to nightfall now and they should try and head back into town before it got 'dangerous' and their parents decided to worry.

That was when Cloud unearthed the partially hidden stone door in the rockside. His curiosity was overwhelming at the sight of it, a burning need that had to be sated. With strength that he rarely displayed Cloud broke the lock and pushed the rusted door inward. So far they hadn't found anything down here, making this the first room that could contain untold riches or knowledge.

Both had their own value.

Inside there were cobwebs. The air was stale and musty. Bones littered the ground in every possible direction. Bits of moth-eaten and half-rotted cloth and long-dead flesh clung to a few of the bones still. On a raised center there lay five coffins. Two were damaged, the lids busted and the sides holding cracks. They were both empty.

Tifa and Cloud checked another two less damaged coffins, both proved empty as well. In the center was the fifth coffin. It was almost shiny despite the layer of dust. New and completely in tact this coffin hardly looked the age of the others. Cloud motioned for Tifa to remain back. He had a feeling...

With a display of great strength for a ten year old Cloud shoved the lid of the coffin aside and peered down in. There lay a man who looked hardly any older than twenty-five. He'd obviously been slumbering, snoring softly within the soft velvet confines. As the lid had moved and torchlight had touched his pale, ethereal face wine-red eyes snapped open and a golden claw-like appendage snapped up and out.

Cloud pulled back, half-graceful and half-not, a soft laugh falling past his lips. The pale pallor of the mans skin, coupled with his wine colored gaze and swift movements gave away this beings _true_ nature. Even discounting the fact that the man's hear was dark as night instead of the regular straw coloration that most of his ancestors held there was no mistaking _what_ he was. Cloud—Ganondorf—had not believed any more could exist in this day and age but here...here was _proof_. Proof that not all of the past had died out.

"Sheikah," Cloud hissed between his teeth, voice high pitched with prepubescence.

This was quite the find; for where there was Sheikah, there was bound to be Hylian Royalty. Ganondorf couldn't contain his laugh at that.

_Zelda's line **survived**_.

* * *

><p><strong>Summary: <strong>Hundreds of thousands of years ago the six sages sealed Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm. Ganondorf swore he'd have his revenge. But the seal was stronger than anyone could predict, and when it did break...well, everything had changed. Even Ganondorf. /FF7 crossover/fusion/

_So for Christmas I got Skyward Sword and oh...the deliciously delightful revelations in that game...You had better bet your asses that I will be obviously including references to it from here on out. So expect spoilers and the eventual appearance of **Ghirahim**._

_I love Ghirahim._

_Enough about that, this chapter ends on a rather interesting note. We learn that there's a Sheikah buried in the Shinra Mansion basement. Hm...I wonder who **that** could be? I also wonder what this means for just who Zelda's newest reincarnation is, let alone her royal bloodline..._

_Lemme tell you, its probably **not** what you expect. At all. Completely. But I'll leave you all to your speculation._

_Obviously here Tifa doesn't act, well, like Tifa. But then neither does Cloud act like Cloud. You change one dynamic of FF7 undoubtedly other connecting dynamics will shift. Cloud grew up close to Tifa, so therefore Tifa will have one of the more drastic changes in character. She'll mellow out some after Cloud leaves._

_There is also a little twisted backstory I'm going to eventually cover concerning Ganondorf and Nabooru. Yes there is more to the story there—Ganondorf has a reason why she's a backstabbing two-timing bitch after all._

_Anyway please review! I love hearing if you enjoy this story or not. Flames will be used to warm my tosies back in college. It's so damn **cold** over there, y'know. My feet just freeze._

_Also~ Thanks to the lovely **6tailedninja** for pointing out the misspelling of **Gerudo**. I do apologize for that!_

_-Twin Kats_


End file.
